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Set up your Archive file location and time increments for cleaning up your Outlook content.

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7.04 Archive Settings - Exercise.docx
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Quick reference

Archive Settings

Setting up your Archive preferences is a good start to creating an Outlook Backup

When to use

You will rarely change these settings, so it is one of the first jobs to do when using Outlook.

Instructions

  1. Click File > Options > Advanced.
  2. Under AutoArchive, click AutoArchive Settings.
  3. Click the Run AutoArchive every # days box and specify how often to run AutoArchive.
  4. Choose any other options you want.

Change the AutoArchive settings for an individual folder

  1. In the Navigation Pane's folder list, right-click the folder you want to change, and click Properties.
  2. On the AutoArchive tab, choose the options you want.

If you want to customize your Archive Folder name and location, follow the steps below:

  1. Click the File Ribbon > Tools > Set Archive Folder
  2. Click New and name the folder and location

Then check your Data Files to make sure it worked

  1. Click the File Ribbon > Account Settings > Data Files tab
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  • 00:05 It's important that you have your archive set up and automatically archiving.
  • 00:10 It's just another protection level.
  • 00:12 When you're first new to Outlook,
  • 00:14 you might not have an archive folder down here.
  • 00:16 So we simply need to activate it and make sure it's turned on.
  • 00:19 So those steps are click File, Options, Advanced, and
  • 00:23 go to the AutoArchive Settings.
  • 00:25 Let's go there.
  • 00:27 On the Outlook ribbons, go ahead and
  • 00:29 click on the File>Options way on the bottom left>Advanced on the left panel.
  • 00:35 And before I go into the AutoArchive Settings, I do want to mention that you
  • 00:40 can click this, Empty Deleted items folders when exiting Outlook.
  • 00:44 So every day, it empties when you close your Outlook,
  • 00:46 it's your personal preference.
  • 00:48 For me, I like my stuff to stay in there for a couple of days before I empty it,
  • 00:52 but you can absolutely turn that on.
  • 00:54 Okay, let's go to AutoArchive Settings.
  • 00:55 This will give you an archive folder on the bottom of your folder list.
  • 00:59 Clicking AutoArchive Settings and now we set up everything we want.
  • 01:04 Now, the Run AutoArchive every 60 days is the max I can have.
  • 01:07 You can do it every day if you want, but it takes time.
  • 01:10 So it's your choice.
  • 01:11 Would you like to be prompted?
  • 01:12 Absolutely, maybe I'm in the middle of something,
  • 01:15 I don't want my autoarchive running.
  • 01:17 During the autoarchive, do you want to delete expired?
  • 01:20 Sure.
  • 01:21 Do you want to archive or delete old items?
  • 01:23 Of course.
  • 01:25 Show archive folder in the folder list?
  • 01:27 Yes, I want it down here, so if yours isn't showing up,
  • 01:30 there might not be a checkmark on this box.
  • 01:32 Put a checkmark there.
  • 01:34 Default folder settings, clean out my items older than 18 months.
  • 01:38 I want my calendar to retain history for a year and half.
  • 01:42 I have mine set to 18 months, you can set yours to whatever you want.
  • 01:46 Where do you want to move the old items to and
  • 01:49 you can pick another folder in your system?
  • 01:52 This is our archive data file.
  • 01:54 So I'm leaving it there, I'm not going to change anything.
  • 01:56 I definitely want it to land there.
  • 01:58 You can permanently delete old items and
  • 02:00 then apply these settings to all folders now.
  • 02:03 Absolutely, click now, all my folders will have the same settings.
  • 02:07 Clicking OK, clicking OK again, now let's take a look.
  • 02:11 Right over here, I do have my archives, I can open it up.
  • 02:14 Everything above is backing up down into this, it's great.
  • 02:18 Now, I could create a new folder on this.
  • 02:20 Maybe every year I want a new archive folder, I'm going to right-click
  • 02:25 on Archives create New Folder, and I'm going to call this my 2024 archives.
  • 02:31 And now, I can go back into my archive settings and tell everything to archive to
  • 02:36 this folder for this year, and then the 2025 for the following year.
  • 02:42 We can change the autoarchive settings for an individual folder.
  • 02:46 So for instance, this folder, I really don't want it to archive every 60 days.
  • 02:52 I want it to archive every five days, so I can right-click on that folder.
  • 02:56 Look really hard looking for anything that says, archive, you're not going to see it.
  • 03:00 So we are down here on Properties.
  • 03:03 And now, you have to pay attention to the tabs in the background.
  • 03:07 The one on the right says Autoarchive.
  • 03:09 I can tell it not to archive these items.
  • 03:13 Archive using the default folders, or clean out items older than three months.
  • 03:19 I'll just say one month.
  • 03:20 Move items to the default archive folder or move items to a new folder.
  • 03:28 I'm going to leave it as my default archive.
  • 03:30 So now I changed the rules for just that folder, but
  • 03:35 everything else will archive as previously set up.

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